All Toolbox calendars created by campus units can be considered for inclusion in one or more of the following campus calendars:

Adding Your Events

Units that want to see their events listed on any of the campus calendars or included on the Featured Events Calendar must have those events loaded into a Toolbox calendar. Public Affairs cannot hand-enter events. Units that wish to continue to use an existing, non-Toolbox calendaring system may create a parallel Toolbox calendar where they post events they want to share campus- and community-wide.

Non-Toolbox Calendars for key campus units will continue to be linked from the Campus Calendar homepage, but their events cannot be placed on the Featured Events Calendar or on any of the campus amalgamated calendars.

Setting up Toolbox Calendars

Setting up a calendar is simple, requires no technical expertise, and takes only minutes. Web Services will be happy to walk you through the process and regularly offers training workshops. To get started immediately please visit the Toolbox.

Most campus units should establish a Toolbox master calendar and one or more Toolbox events calendars.

Master calendars can include (i.e., pull in events from) any number of event calendars, but individual events cannot be added to the master calendar. (For example, many units create a master calendar to include their own events calendar, plus the Campus Holidays Calendar and the Academic Dates Calendar, so they never have to personally enter those events.)

Event calendars are where you will enter your events, but these calendars cannot include any other calendars.

Units are strongly encouraged to create several Toolbox event calendars. Units rarely have only one type of event; the same unit that lists a lecture by a well known speaker may also have performance events, or training events. The campus calendars include your events only if they match the campus calendar type. By creating a speakers Event Calendar, performances Event Calendar, etc., those events can all be pulled into a single Master Calendar for the unit (probably including a calendar that features intra-unit or not-open-to-the-public events). Then the appropriate campus calendar can maximize exposure of your events by including the event calendars according to type, and there is no redundancy in entering the events into the calendaring system.

Tips for Maximizing Your Event Visibility

Public Affairs will include your Toolbox calendar in the Campus Calendars based on the preponderance of your events and where a user might intuitively look for your events. Your events are much more likely to be discovered quickly if you create separate calendars for each category of events. (Again, this does not have to represent redundant work on your part, since all of your unit's event calendars are pulled into a master calendar.)

Give the most complete information possible when entering new events, including a description. Remember that your events will appear in campuswide lists and need to be unwaveringly identified with your unit. List buildings as well as room numbers, name your unit as the event sponsor, and list contact information. Make the event title a link, either to more information or to your unit's homepage.

For events that are not open to the public, check the box that says "This event can only be viewed in this calendar" when entering the event. This will keep them from being posted on campuswide calendars. Classes, department meetings, TBA events, and "invitation only" events are all examples of events that should not be shared with other calendars. Calendars that repeatedly share events that are not public will be pulled from inclusion in campus calendars.

Consider a calendar name change. An a-z listing of all Toolbox calendars is linked from the main Calendar Homepage. Is the title of your calendar the name someone would look for intuitively? Are you listed under the O's for Office of...? Or is your calendar listed under T because its name begins with "The"? Neither is good practice.

Featured Events Calendar

A very limited number of items of the broadest general interest can be placed on the Featured Events Calendar on the Calendars Homepage. Suggest events for the Featured Events Calendar to Todd Wilson .Events listed in Toolbox calendars have an event ID number found at the end of the Web address for that item. In suggesting events for the featured events calendar, you should reference theevent ID. Thus, you would suggest eventId=18506 for this item: http://illinois.edu/calendar/list/7&eventId=18506.

Featured Events will be open to the public and appeal to the broadest possible audience.

The mix of featured events will reflect the breadth of the types of campus activities and represent as many campus units as possible.